State of Texas v. Cemex – the meaning of “minerals”

The Eighth Court of Appeals in El Paso has issued its opinion in State of Texas v. Cemex Construction Materials South, LLC. The court reversed a summary judgment for Cemex and granted the State’s summary judgment, returning the case to the trial court to assess damages. The State is seeking damages of $558 million.

Cemex is the world’s leading supplier of ready-mix concrete, and one of the world’s largest producers of White Portland Cement. Cemex is based in Monterrey, Mexico, and has operations across North and South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. It has annual sales of more than $14 billion.

Cemex operates a quarry for sand, gravel and caliche in El Paso County. According to the State’s petition, Cemex and its predecessors have mined about 100 million tons of materials from the quarry since 1940. Cemex bought the quarry from the British group RMC in 2005.

The State claims to own the rights to the materials mined from the quarry because the sand, gravel and caliche are “minerals” reserved by the State when the lands were originally granted in 1900, 1906 and 1912. The El Paso court held that the lands were classified as “mineral” at the time of the original grants and are therefore “mineral-classified lands,” and that the sand, gravel and caliche consitute “minerals” and are therefore owned by the State as a matter of law. (See my previous article on mineral-classified lands here.)

The Court of Appeals relied on the opinion of the Texas Supreme Court in Schwarz v. State, 703 S.W.2d 187 (Tex. 1986), which held that the State owns all coal and lignite under mineral-classified lands in Texas. Schwarz is notable because it applies a different rule in determining what substances are “minerals” for purposes of minerals reserved to the State than the rule it has adopted for construction of instruments reserving “minerals” between private parties. Some substances are not considered “minerals” in a private transaction if the removal of those substances would destroy the surface estate. But the Court in Schwarz rejected this rule for classification of “minerals” reserved to the State. So, according to the El Paso court’s opinion, the State owns all sand, gravel and caliche in mineral-classified lands even if mining of those substances would destroy the surface estate.

The El Paso court’s opinion in Cemex does not discuss what test should be applied under Schwarz to determine whether a substance is a “mineral” and therefore owned by the State. For conveyances and reservations between private parties after June 8, 1983, whether a substance is a “mineral” is determined by the “ordinary-and-natural-meaning” test. Under this test, “other minerals” includes “all substances within the ordinary and natural meaning of that word” regardless of how they are extracted. Moser v. U.S. Steel Corp., 676 S.W.2d 99 (Tex. 1984). Limestone, building stone, sand, gravel and caliche have been held not to be “other minerals” under this test. The court in Schwarz appears to be applying the ordinary-and-natural-meaning test in classifying lignite as a “mineral”: “It is clear that the sovereign in Texas has always claimed all of the substances commonly classified as ‘minerals’ and only gives away those substances by an express release or conveyance.” 703 S.W.2d at 191 (emphasis added). Clearly, the El Paso court did not apply this test to the State’s mineral reservation:

[B]ecause the State did not unequivocally grant to the original purchasers in clear and explicit terms the dirt, caliche, sand, gravel, limestone and other minerals and materials to which Cemex now claims ownership, those items were withheld from the State’s conveyances of the … lands and any ambiguity or obscurity in the terms of the statute, such as the terms “the minerals,” “stones valuable for ornamental or building purposes,” and “other valuable building material,” must be interpreted in favor of the State.

The El Paso court appears to be holding that any substance of economic value that can be removed from the land is a “mineral” for purposes of the State’s title.

Cemex will undoubtedly be asking the Texas Supreme Court to review the case.

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